S1 Extra5: What Jesus never taught us - Christians playing the wrong game

There is something Jesus never taught his disciples how to do. And Christians tried it anyway, and when they did, they found themselves playing the wrong game.
      
00:39 - When our beliefs lead us to perpetrate evil       .
11:36 - What Jesus never taught his disciples how to do       .
17:11 - The kind of power rejected by Christ       .
25:00 - Christians playing the wrong game       .

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Transcript

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[ pendulum ]

There is something that Jesus Christ never seems to have taught his disciples how to do; so, a few centuries later, Christians went at it on their own, and gave it a--what's the phrase, “the good old college try,”--and I don’t that has turned out so well. 

 [ Short music ]

So, let’s explore that here in this fifth post-season extra episode of “What do you mean God speaks?” I’m Paul Seungoh Chung, on… 

 “What Jesus never taught us: Christians playing the wrong game” ….

[ Short music ]

Here’s a question: what does your truth entitle you to do? 

What I mean is this. There are certain things, important things, that you believe are true. Say, the way we should live as individuals, or the way our society should run… or, how people should think to be more rational, informed, and wise... or perhaps what we need to do to enact justice, or to correct inequities, or to protect our planet… and so on.

But, there are always people who don’t share your views. They don’t believe in your truths, or agree with you on what must be done. Now, is it because they are ignorant, or uneducated, or malevolent? Perhaps. Or, it could just be that they’re self-serving. I mean, when you’re trying to make genuine changes--say, to dismantle some systemic injustice in your society--you'd expect, generally speaking, that those who’d gain from your proposed changes would welcome it, while those who won’t be affected either way would be indifferent, and those who stand to lose from it, would oppose it. Whichever the reason is, you have oppositions, so, what do you do? Debate? Fight? Either way, you’ll try to “win” in some way or other. 

Let’s skip all of that though. Say, you then find yourselves with power to enact your beliefs or your ideals over any objection or opposition. You have the mandate. Or the needed leverage, or influence, or brute force. Yet, even then, some people still oppose you, and stubbornly stand in your way. Perhaps they were even the very people who previously suppressed your views in brutal ways. But, now, you have power over them.

…So, what does your truth entitle you to do, when you’re the one with the power? 

Now, most of us--at least I hope--would advocate for some tolerance over those who disagree with us. But, as we explored in episode two, of the main season, tolerance goes only so far, especially when it’s about things that matter to us… and it’s hard to pin down what it means to be tolerant in practice. I suppose not killing them, or driving them out of their homes, or burning down their buildings, would be a start. But, how much more than that will you be willing to do? And what if you believe these people are really reprehensible, and responsible for a lot of harm? Maybe you think their influence needs to be… curtailed a bit, for the sake of everyone else, of course. Some actions against them are necessary, or justified, or at least--what’s the word--"understandable.”

And that’s how our world has often justified its atrocities. This is the root of oppression and tyranny based on belief, such as religious persecutions of every kind. 

Now, I’ve noticed that in the West, Christians seem to be the most prominent villains of this in our popular imagination. And there are good reasons for that. 

The obvious reason is that historically, they often were the villains. But, there’s a very important dimension to this that we often neglect. Which is that, aside from the first three centuries of marginalization, and periodic persecutions by the Roman Empire, Christianity was the dominant religion in the West. Until its power waned in the last two centuries, its institutions presided over all religious life in Europe, and consequently, in many of the lands colonized by Europeans. So, that’s over fifteen hundred years of having power over anyone who would voice dissent--fifteen hundred years of being able to do whatever they believed their truths entitled them to do, including imprisonment and bloodshed. Simply put, Christians in the West have had a long time and far too many opportunities to be the villains of religious tyranny.

But, the other reason, I think, isn’t so obvious to those whose perspective is limited to the West. You see, the kind of oppression that tends to be most visible to us--other than the ones that are done to us, obviously--are the ones that happened near us. That is, wrongs perpetrated by people who are not us, but close enough to us, physically, and culturally. This closeness engages us in what happened, whether we like it or not, so that we perceive the pains they’ve caused, but without the feelings of guilt. In contrast, it’s much harder to perceive the wrongs we may be doing, and the wrongs perpetrated faraway, say against Christians who are being persecuted and killed on the other side of the world, do not engage us in the same way because it’s too distant from us. Oh, and there’s one other key factor; wrongs that we tend to recognize and speak out the most are the ones perpetrated by those who are powerful enough to have done what they did, but not so powerful that we either don’t question their actions, or are too afraid to. 

And in the secularized West, the Christian religion happens to fit the list of criteria that I just described for visibility. In the secular West, many of us find that Christians are not quite us, but close to us. And their institutions held powers, which they abused far too often, but, they no longer have power they once held, so we feel safe enough to call them out on their abuse. And yes, so we should, for some of that is long overdue. 

But, I’m trying to point out that there is always a limitation in our perspective. It means there are belief-based villains--for lack of better words--who won’t be visible to us; they are too far away, or too powerful for us to challenge, or their wrongs are too pervasive for us to perceive. Or, it may even be that we don’t see them because they’re us. We may be the villains, with prejudices and wrongs we don’t or won’t recognize. And I’ve observed that we have this tendency to gleefully heap our scorn and hatred upon the villains who are made visible, while failing to notice that if we can do that to them, they are likely yesterday’s villains. They are on their way out, exposed, cornered, defanged. Well, either that, or we’re trumpeting our defiance in the safety of our particular tribe, or camp, while they’re in a place where they can’t easily reach us. 

But, to see villains of today, or tomorrow, even… or to see whether you and I are villains, I would argue that we need to return to my first question.

What do you think your truths entitle you to do, when you have the power over people?

But, that doesn’t dig quite deep enough. Because some of us may fool ourselves into thinking that we’d never abuse power. Or that we’d keep our beliefs to ourselves--that they’re personal. Except that, first, our beliefs are rarely ever some private, personal things that don’t affect anyone else. I mean we vote, right? And we vote for a party, or a candidate, who stand for our beliefs about where our society should be headed. 

And whether we would abuse power and oppress people who disagree with us… well, that depends on what we think we’re faced with. 

See, historically speaking, the most severe forms of oppression happens when a group has enough power to impose their will over their opponents, by force if needed, yet not enough power so that there are those who question them, or openly challenge them. That is, when they believe they’re threatened; when they feel that the important things that they stand for, and defend, are in danger.

This is why for example, in the West, the religious inquisitions, and executions, were rampant not during the Medieval era, when the influence of the Church in the West was at its highest, but during the early modern era. That was when dissenting voices emerged to challenge the reign of the Roman Catholic Church, leading to Protestant reformations, and subsequent schisms. 

And secular, or even anti-religious powers are not exempt from this. The Enlightenment-inspired French Revolution, which forms the basis of modern liberal democracies, btw, also led to the Reign of Terror, and within the span of a year or so, seventeen thousand people were executed, ten thousand were killed in prison, and a hundred thousand civilians were massacred. And the leaders of the revolution justified these actions by saying that they were enemies of the new republic and its ideals: the aristocrats, the loyalists, Christian peasants and their clergy. Then, of course, in the 20th century, various communist governments across the world also justified the killings of millions again as necessary actions to protect their society from the “reactionary forces” that they believed were trying to undermine their new communist utopia.

I mention these examples not because these somehow excuse what religions like Christianity have done throughout history. Far from it. Instead, I’m trying to bring to attention a much deeper, sinister human tendency, more… fundamental than religions: a tendency that seems to go unnoticed in so many of what I frankly find to be fruitless debates on whether religion is good or bad. 

And it’s this: what you think your truth entitles you to do… is what you will in fact do. Obviously. But, that alone would be harmless except that you will have people who oppose your ideals, or vision--or faith or whatever--and even threaten them. So, then the question becomes, when something, or someone, threatens everything you stand for, work for, and hope for, what do you think you are entitled to do to them? And here is where the issue of power emerges.

First, imagine the worst, most brutal answer you can give to that question--the “nuclear” option, reserved for the direst of scenarios. Say, when terrible, reprehensible people are gleefully destroying your life and your loved ones because of your beliefs, or race, or orientation. The problem is, when you really are in such dire straits, you likely won’t be able to carry out your nuclear option, because if you had the power to do that, you wouldn’t be in such dire straits. No… it’s when you have enough power to harm those you perceive as your enemies without restraint, but not enough, so that there actually are people who oppose you… that’s when you can carry out your worst answer.

And so we return to the beginning of this episode. There is something that Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to do. 

Now, there are a number of things Jesus never taught about--like topics in astronomy, or geography, or botany--presumably because those were not the kind of things he was trying to teach, as interesting and important as those topics are. But, there’s something you would have expected him to have covered, but he didn’t. And that is, how his followers--who would later be called Christians--should wield power over those who would oppose their mission and message. 

Or to put it differently, Jesus, and indeed, the entire New Testament Bible, which describes the lives, faith, and practices of the first generation Christians, never really answers the question of what Christians are entitled to do, when they come to hold power over those who opposed them.

And the disturbing implication is, the question itself cannot be answered. Because Christians… should not have such power over people in the first place. If anything, even if such power is granted to them, they should lay it down.

[ pendulum swings ] 

Actually I should specify what I mean by “power.” Because there are different kinds of power, even in the context of the Bible. 

Generally speaking, “power” is what enables something to bring about a certain state of things. It can keep things going, or cause new things to happen. The sun has power to light the sky; the storms have the power to make the seas rage. Machines need power to do its thing, like light up the screen to your computer. We need power in our society to bring about say, social changes, like reformation or justice, or perhaps, chaos, turmoil, and pain. Some individuals have power in their speech and actions, or in their character, which profoundly affect the people and events around them, for better or for worse.

Now, the last one is part of what the Bible speaks of as spiritual power. Spiritual power from God enables one to testify to the truth, especially in adverse circumstances, or to stand against unjust powers and dark spiritual forces, and also to bring about wonders or healings that are beyond human capacity or imagination. When they are needed, that is. And in the book of Acts in the New Testament Bible, Jesus meets his disciples after his resurrection, and specifically tells them that when the Spirit of God comes to them, they will receive such power. And this power will enable them to be witnesses to the entire world, of who Jesus is, and what he has done, and what that all means. 

However, Jesus, and the apostles never seems to teach about, how to wield another, very specific kind of power--what is called the powers of the “world,” the powers that will enable them to impose their will over other people. Politically, militarily, or otherwise.

Again, this is different from the idea of wielding authority within the church, which Jesus did teach, and the apostles wrote about in their letters to the churches. This is about how leaders in the Church ought to teach and discipline other fellow Christians. There were people who joined their community by declaring their commitment to place their faith in the person of Jesus, and to follow his teachings. But, doing so, implied certain responsibilities, to oneself, to other people, and thus to God. And the idea is that those who teach and lead in the Church, are to keep their fellow Christians who now share their way of life, accountable to such responsibilities. 

And that’s altogether different from this following question. What if you hold power over those who aren’t Christians? And by this, I don’t mean when a Christian individual find themselves placed in position of power or authority over those who aren’t. For example, when a Christian is a head of a company, or holds political office. For this, there are a number of teachings. For example, Jesus says, whereas others use their power to lord over people, the greatest in His Kingdom are those who will serve and work for the benefit of others. Then, there are instructions the apostle gives to Christians who are heads of households. One such is when the Apostle Paul reminds his readers that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; or that Christian masters should remember that they too are servants of their master, Jesus. 

Instead, I’m talking about a scenario that the Christian Church in the Roman Empire, for example, suddenly found itself in 380 AD, when it was declared to be the state religion. That is, when the Christian Church as an institution, comes to hold power, politically, socially, or economically over those who aren’t Christians--enough to say, compel them to convert, or to impose on them specifically Christian laws to govern their lives. What should Christians do with such power then? Is there a teaching similar, for example, to a verse in the Quran that says, “There is no compulsion in religion?” That is, when you have power over people, you cannot coerce people into your faith? I mean, never mind the actual practice, since, people usually don’t do what they preach. 

And for Christianity, the answer seems to go further. Don’t hold on to such power. Not just don’t compel people into religion; lay down any power that will enable you to do so. If such power is within your grasp, cast it aside!

Now, there are a few key reasons why I think this radical view is the Christian position.

First is that there is simply no example, or even a general principle to draw from, in the lives and practices of the Church in the Bible, that offers a vision of how the Church should wield that kind of power. Some religions, like Islam, had a founding community that wielded power over both the state and religious institutions. Christianity in contrast began from a community of believers who were marginalized and persecuted by the wider society, by the pagan Roman Empire, and even by those who were fellow believers in God, the Jewish community, who back then had greater influence and power than their Christian offshoot. The early Christians often had to hide their faith, meeting secretly in each other’s homes. The apostles exhorted the early Church to pray for peace, patiently endure persecution, and let their good deeds and love demonstrate the truth of their faith. Christians were to courageously bear witness to what they believe when challenged, thoughtfully explain their beliefs when questioned, and forgive their persecutors in prayer. I personally think the churches back then would have resembled the underground, house churches in modern, communist China. 

But, all this isn’t quite the same as teaching that one should lay aside power. It’s not like they had a choice; it’s easy laying aside power you don’t have. Except for two things.

You may have heard about the Book of Revelation. You know, the last book in the Christian Bible--the one about the End of the World? It’s a record of a vision where God brings judgment upon the world, and specifically to the powers, demonic and earthly, that opposed the Church. The Church is vindicated, all evils are vanquished, and the people of God are ushered into their eternal City, where they will see their hopes in Christ fulfilled. Yet, the implicit message of this book, beyond its apocalyptic imageries, is that the One who will judge the world… is God. Now, Revelation has visions of future rise and fall of powers, and wars that span the entire world, but all the players in that drama are the forces of the world that oppose Christ, and never the Church. There is no vision of future Christians seizing the reins of power, to bring about retribution against their foes, though you’d understand them for wanting that. Yet, instead, the book reports a vision where Christians who were killed for their faith stand before God and ask for justice, and God responds by telling them that even more are destined to join their numbers, and the world has been granted more time, until that number is reached.

Then, there’s the example of Jesus. Not only did Jesus never teach his disciples about how to wield power over people, but his ministry led him to the death on the cross. In fact, according to the Gospels, that is what makes him the Messiah, the one who will bring God’s salvation. Then, as if to hammer in that point, Jesus tells his disciples, “If anyone wants to come after me, you must take up your cross and follow me.”

And I suggest that one of the keys to understand this is found in the narrative of how Jesus began his ministry. He goes into the desert, and the devil presents him three temptations. Now, I went over this in the first main season's eleventh episode, “How evil lurks behind Christianity, and every other good thing.” So, please go check that out if you haven’t done so. The part about the temptations is near the end of that episode.

But, briefly, the three temptations were the following. First: “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Second: “If you are the Son of God, perform a miracle, by jumping off the Temple, because God promised He will protect you.” And Third: “I will give you all the powers of the kingdoms of this world, if you would just bow to me.”

Now, Jesus rejects the devil. And we can certainly understand the temptations in a more general way, as testing our faith in God, regarding the things we need in life. But, the context of this narrative suggests more, at least in the case of Jesus. He is about to begin his ministry. And the devil did not merely say, “aren’t you hungry? Turn stones into bread,” or, “If you have faith in God, ask for miracles.” Instead, the challenge was, “If you are the Son of God.” And this title, “the Son of God,” denotes a… mission. The Son of God is the One who will reveal God, and bring God’s salvation to humanity.

So, the temptations seem to be about, how to accomplish the mission of God, and save humanity. And the devil was saying, “Use power to that. Use power to fulfill their physical needs, so that people will be compelled to follow you. Or demonstrate your power of miracle in the view of all, so that they are made to submit to you. Or else, take for yourself the power that the empires and the kingdoms of this world possess.”

And according to the Gospels, not only does Jesus reject them, but, his subsequent life and ministry explicitly presents a counter-point to each of these temptations. 

Jesus does bring forth bread. Out of one boy’s lunch, he brings forth enough food to feed several thousand. And he does this at least twice. But, when people try to declare him the Messiah in response, he immediately leaves them. He can bring forth bread, but that will not be what makes him, the Son of God. Jesus performs miracles. He healed the sick, and even raised the dead, yet often, he tells people to keep this a secret, until he dies on the cross. He has powers to perform miracles. But, he will not use them to make people submit to him as the Son of God. Or to put it simply, neither the bread, nor the miracles of healings were to be tools of power, to be held over people so that they submit to him as their Lord. They were to be given freely, without cost or condition, as the expression and demonstration that through Jesus, God was responding to their suffering. And you were indeed free to reject him. And even crucify him. 

And on the day Jesus was finally crucified, the Roman governor, Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you claiming to be a king?” Because that would mean Jesus was guilty of treason under Roman law, and so could be crucified. Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not a kingdom of this world. Or else, my disciples would be fighting for me. I’m a king, and my kingship and my kingdom is about Truth.”

Gospels testify that Jesus has power--Divine power. Yet, Jesus rejected every use of power that he could have wielded to impose his will over those who opposed him--the kind of power that could’ve kept him from rejection, denigration, and the cross.

And then, after his resurrection, his disciples gather around him and ask him, “Are you now going to restore the Kingdom?” By this, they meant, now are you finally going to take power, and become the king over God’s people?” I mean it’s reasonable to think that the one who defeated death would now have the means to do that, right? Yet, Jesus replies by saying, “It’s not for you to decide when that happens. What will happen is you will receive the Holy Spirit from God, who will enable you and guide you to do what you should do.”

And what the Holy Spirit enabled his disciples and led them to do, was to establish the first churches. Which brings us back to the persecuted early church.

But, again, it isn’t that Christianity rejects power per se. It isn’t, for example, saying that Christian individuals shouldn’t hold political offices, or wield authority, and certainly not that they shouldn’t let teachings of Jesus guide their decisions and actions when they hold power. Rather, it is a radical re-imagination of what true power is. There’s a hymn about Jesus, recorded in Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is, as far as the scholars can tell, the oldest known Christian hymn, and it predates all four Gospels, and of course, Paul’s letters since he’s quoting the thing. And its content is basically this:

“Though Christ Jesus was in the form of God, He did not exploit His equality with God, but set aside everything, to selflessly become human, and to even die on the cross. And so, God exalted him above everything, as the Lord of all.”

But, this isn’t just hymn about Jesus, but what the power and Lordship of Jesus Christ is about. And it comes from releasing power. It comes from his sacrifice, and the cross. And that in turn, implies a particular understanding of how Christianity--that is, how the Church that bears witness to the Christian Gospels about Jesus--should influence the world. How it is to defend, advance, and unfold its mission and message.

[ pendulum swings ] 

Yet, in the West, once Christianity became the state religion, the Church often wielded the kind of power that enabled them to persecute or crush those who resisted the Christian message. Again, this is not at all to say that this is what they always did. Far from it! My ancestors in Korea became Christians because they were inspired by the message of the Gospels, and its teachings about God. That is how Christianity became influential in Korea, where Christians were systematically persecuted and killed until end of the nineteenth century. But, there were many times when the Church did rely on the powers of the state to impose its will, presiding over religious trials and executions, or to forcibly convert those who held different faiths. And they may have justified such actions by thinking, “This is to defend the true faith,” or “This is for the salvation of their souls.” 

And the problem isn’t simply whether what these Christians taught about God, salvation, and so on, are true or not. It’s that according to the Gospels they preached, salvation came from Jesus who set aside his powers, and died on the cross. 

And that means by wielding the kind of power that Jesus, the one they preached was their Lord and savior, rejected, they were abandoning their Gospel to preach something else. Here’s what I mean. Consider this following scenario. Say, you are a refugee, fleeing from a war. Someone leads you to a train, on a single rail track, and he says, “Get on this train; this track is the only route to safety.” But then, that man doesn’t get on that train himself even though there’s plenty of room. He instead pushes you into the train, gets on a truck, and furiously drives away toward the opposite direction. Oh, but the truck did have the logo of the train emblazoned on its side though. 

Now, it isn’t simply that this man told you that the train will take you to safety, but then acted in way that was inconsistent with his words. It’s more than that. Because what he was really telling you, was that he is lying that this train will take you to safety, and that he’s probably using you as some decoy or something.

Likewise, whenever the Church wielded the kind of power that Jesus rejected, and rejected to the point of dying on the cross, the Church was defending and advancing a different message. To put it more provocatively, they were really saying, this Jesus who was crucified… is not actually Lord, or the Savior.

Now, these Christians may have begun by merely wanting to defend or advance the Christian message. I mean, imagine yourself. It may be that the previous generation of Christians were marginalized, persecuted, and even killed, and you do not want to go through the same thing. Or, it may be that people have been denigrating your most important beliefs and convictions; or it may be that who oppose Christianity have time and again undermined your good will and efforts. Or perhaps there are people who are doing things you believe are morally reprehensible--but, they ignore your protests. Then, you are offered power. It may be that the new emperor thinks highly of the Christian message that he wants it to be the state religion. And that means he’s willing, on your say so, to bring the might of the empire strongly on your favor. Or, it may be that the church has a seat in the governing authority of your town. Whichever it is, you have the power. It’s not that you want to do anything drastic. It’s just that, with this power, you can defend your faith against those who would denigrate it. But, maybe you can do more. You can… more effectively, albeit more forcefully, to encourage people to believe what you believe. You can punish those terrible people who really ought to be punished.

Yet, as you’re doing this, you’re implicitly rejecting what Jesus did--rejecting a key aspect of what you claimed makes Jesus your Lord and Savior.

But, it’s worse than that. You see, now you’ve begun playing a different game. By the way, by “game,” I don’t mean entertainment. I’m using a broader sense, where “games” we play, define the kind of goals we set, and the strategies, decisions, and interactions that enable us to reach those goals. The world, with its politics, intrigue, and wars, are playing one kind of game. It has different rules, strategies, purposes, and goals. Jesus came to establish a different game; different way of living, different goals, different destinies, which led to his cross, yes, but then to his resurrection and Lordship.

Whenever the Church decided to wield the powers he rejected, they were switching to a different game. And whenever you want to switch to a different game, you need to know this. There will be players who’re already playing this game. And they will likely be better at it. That’s because now you’re playing by their rules, which aim for their goals. So, really, there are only two ways this could end. You are either outplayed, or you become like them.

So, you may have begun by wanting to defend the Christian Gospel, to testify that Jesus is Lord. Jesus you serve laid down his powers and took on a lowly, vulnerable status. But, the game you’re now playing is aiming for dominance, power, and wealth. You teach that Jesus is the King who testifies to the truth. But, the game you’re playing requires half-truths, misinformation, or even deceit, to win. You believe that Jesus is the savior who forgives his enemies, and gave his life for many. Yet, the game you’re playing involve bringing down your enemies, and taking their lives if needs be. 

And all this time, you’re doing this because you believe that the truth you are defending, entitles you to these actions. Yet, by playing this game, that truth is not what you’re defending. Not anymore. Perhaps, you hope that you will not fully play this game… but take only the measures necessary for the greater good. And who knows, maybe these measures are necessary! But with one foot in this game, how long before you, or more to the point, someone else among the uncounted millions of other Christians, decide to play full throttle?

And you want to also ask, what kind of people would rise to the top of the Church? Because the answer is: the best players of whatever game it is playing now.

And after saying all this, I actually find it remarkable that Christianity did not fare far worse, after two millennia. I suppose I could say similar things with a number of older, religious and philosophical traditions across the world, which have proven resilient over the ages. Because I find that same cannot be said of the many modern ideologies in the last century that has plunged our world into bloodshed within a single generation.

But, this still poses a sobering question for the Christian Church.

[ music ]

How often did we play the wrong game? The Game Jesus never taught us how to play?

How often did we think that the truths that we stand for entitle us to the kind power that Jesus Christ rejected?

What does our truth, entitle us to do?

 [ music ]

Thank you for listening, and support this series by following, sharing, and rating.

And please stay tuned, because the next episode will be the last of the post-season episodes; it will expand on some of the questions left open in our very first episode of the main season, and it will also set us up for the second Season coming in August: Genesis.